Ask Rex Hess what he thinks of Meals on Wheels and he'll say, "Well I hope someday they run out of beans." Then he'll laugh.
Then he'll get serious. "It has been real good," he says.
Hess is the healthiest half of a long-married couple who live in a quiet neighborhood in Sandy. Hess takes care of his wife, Thora. He appreciates having a hot meal for her — and for himself — every weekday.
Today, when the snow has been falling all morning, it is especially nice that the hot lunch is delivered right to their door. And it's not beans either. On this particular Wednesday the menu is meatballs, vegetables, fruit and a choice of milk or juice.
The delivery man is Jim Lund, a volunteer who uses his own lunch hour and his own car to bring lunch to the Hesses and seven or eight other homes.
More than half of Salt Lake County's Meals on Wheels meals are delivered by volunteers. "We have 835 volunteers," explained Anne Jewett, volunteer coordinater with Meals on Wheels. Some volunteers are with church groups. Most are from one of 50 local businesses. "Your light company, gas company, your bank."
The volunteers will deliver 100,000 meals this year in Salt Lake County. "They are making a substantial difference," Jewett said. Paid drivers will deliver an equal number of hot meals — as well as 75,000 liquid meals — to county residents.
Each meal costs about $5 for food, preparation and delivery, according to Program Manager Marvin Conrad. The suggested donation is $2.25 per meal, and the recipients, on average, pay about half that amount. Jewett believes that many of those who pay for their lunches really can't afford to.
Bonnie Athas, program manager and dietician with the State Division of Aging and Adult Services, says Utah's seniors have earned the right to stay in their own homes as long as possible. There was a time when there were waiting lists for Meals on Wheels, she says. Thanks in part to the Utah State Legislature, local agencies are keeping up with the demand, Athas says.
No one inquires into the senior's income before signing him or her up for the service. The criteria in Salt Lake County is typical: All you need to do to get Meals on Wheels is to be a resident, 60 or older, and be homebound or be the caregiver for someone who is homebound.
Today, on Lund's route, his first stop is at the home of Shirley Cook, who lives with her daughter, Bonnie. Cook has been getting Meals on Wheels for several years. She is getting increasingly forgetful and recently her children arranged for a home health aide to come in while they are at work. Up until now, however, the Meals on Wheels people were the ones who checked in on Cook.
They were the ones who could be counted on to show up at noon with a cheery greeting. They broke up the long day for Cook. Because of Meals on Wheels, she didn't have to use the stove, or remember when it was time to eat.
The last stop on Lund's route today is the home of Hortense Briggs. Briggs and her dog and her cat all welcome Lund warmly. Briggs says her children were the ones who called the county and signed her up for Meals on Wheels. She'd been losing weight, she says. She'd fallen and broken some ribs and somehow, even when she felt better, she was in the habit of going all day without eating.
Even though Lund has lived and worked in this neighborhood all his life, he never knew that Meals on Wheels Route 36 ran right through the center of his community. He found out about Meals on Wheels, and the need for volunteers, when he heard Jewett speak to the local Chamber of Commerce.
Lund was the manager of an Albertson's on 9400 South, at the time. He told Jewett he'd like to volunteer one day a week, and he was pretty sure some of the other employees would volunteer as well. They did.
"It was an easy sell," says Lund. No one really minds giving up one lunch hour a week, he says.
Recently, when Lund was given a second store to manage, this one in Granger, he talked up the idea at his new store and got another week's worth of volunteers, as well as some substitutes. Between the two stores, they have 12 volunteers and deliver more than 100 meals a week, Lund says.
Lund compliments the county on a well-run program. Each day a cooler and warming oven full of prepared meals is delivered to his store at about 10 a.m. The oven is plugged in behind the deli counter. Then at 11:30 or so, the volunteer of the day just picks up the food and puts it in his or her car and takes off down the street.
The route is arranged in a neat little circle. Lund has plenty of time to visit and be friendly for a few minutes at each home — and still make it back to work within an hour.
This is a rewarding task, says Lund. "You get to know people." Sometimes as you stand at their door, he says, it hits you that you are the only person they are going to see all day. You get to feel close to them, even if you do exchange just a few minutes of conversation.
In the year he's been driving this route, several of the elderly people have died, and he was a little surprised at how hard that was on him, he says. "The one fellow we lost, he was always sitting there, with his wife. You never went in but there they were, sitting side-by-side and so happy. Always so happy to see us." Losing that man was tough, Lund says.
On the other hand, he's also watched a few people get stronger. One woman who had fallen and broken some bones and been unable to drive, eventually called to say she didn't need Meals on Wheels any longer. And pretty soon, sure enough, Lund saw her doing her shopping, driving her car again, out and about.
Volunteers help drive hunger away
Jim Lund still resides in the Sandy neighborhood where he grew up. A year ago he learned that Meals on Wheels was looking for volunteers to spend one lunch hour a week delivering meals in his area. He signed on and told his coworkers about it, and they volunteered as well.
E-mail: susan@desnews.com